{"id":132,"date":"2024-05-08T07:07:03","date_gmt":"2024-05-08T12:07:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/somnambulantdrift.com\/blog\/?p=132"},"modified":"2024-05-08T09:27:38","modified_gmt":"2024-05-08T14:27:38","slug":"a-yid-a-squid-and-a-canadian-bid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/somnambulantdrift.com\/blog\/a-yid-a-squid-and-a-canadian-bid\/","title":{"rendered":"A Yid, a Squid, and a Canadian Bid"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Christopher Bissonnette – Persuasion<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

During the 2020 lockdowns, it was nearly impossible to cross south into Canada from Detroit unless it was for \u201cessential\u201d work. But there was no way I was going to let that blow my one chance to secure a song from Christopher Bissonnette for Source Foray.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had been loosely riding the artist\u2019s coattails since the Thinkbox days, hoping to absorb some of the calm, collected energy in his work through osmosis\/exposure. I never got far, but I finally got my chance around January 2020. Chris invited me to his studio to advise me on what was then just an inkling that would eventually become Somnambulant Drift. We scheduled for April, and I held on to a reserved excitement while the horrors of Covid lockdowns unfolded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an unexpected turn amongst a sea of unexpected turns, official US and Canadian cooperative efforts seemed to sour, and border crossings became something they had never been. As a kid, going to Windsor for Chinese food was as routine as crossing the south side Chicago bridge the Blues Brothers jumped; it was a daily occurrence for many. Suddenly, I needed a passport, an essential job, and an ironclad will to make this meeting. Luckily, one of these, I had.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I thought of every possible excuse I could have had to make the trek. I checked the Polar Bears Club, but their outings ended for the season in February. I tried to find a Detroit River archeological dive expedition that might coincide with my schedule. No luck. I even contacted Wim Hof\u2019s team to try to align my motives with some sort of cold water immersion study, but I came to the conclusion that I would have to do it the old fashioned, Purple Gang way. I had to smuggle myself across, just the opposite of the rum runners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Absent experience in illegal border crossing and international espionage, I studied a bunch of Bond movies and devised a bulletproof plan. I knew I needed to look nice, so I found a riverside bowling alley that would receive a package of clothing and store it in one of their lockers. I enlisted a diver friend, Blitz, to make sure I was adequately outfitted in neoprene to maintain body temperature during the frigid swim. And last, I made sure I had a Canadian to American translator lined up for my arrival, both to assist in incidentals and get me out of the pickle if I ran into the infamous language barrier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With everything in place and triple checked, I set out under the cover of darkness the night before our meeting. I parked an unmarked Nissan Altima rented in a premeditated, discreet location, shed my overclothes, and saluted the clandestine, unauthorized venue we used to call \u201cUnder the Bridge\u201d. It was time to disembark. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first two thirds of the swim were uneventful. I spent months training, and neither the cold water nor the long swim tested my mettle. I evaded the coast guard, I evaded night fishermen, but I couldn\u2019t evade something I had no idea existed. I thought I had done thorough research. I found nothing in modern biology nor in the fossil record about a giant squid in the Great Lakes region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was certainly taken off guard. I thought I had planned for any contingency, but I hadn\u2019t planned to be Captain Nemo, despite familiarity with the work of Verne. As a lover of knives, I knew my Bradford Guardian in Magnacut would serve me well in the water. What I didn\u2019t know was that I would use it to eventually pierce the eye of the great beast after a formidable fight. I stealthily swam away from the body to resume my mission, leaving it to wash ashore and garner the attention of the Fox 2 morning news team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I dragged my exhausted corpus up the shore into Windsor as a sliver of the sun was showing at the horizon. Making my way to the bowling alley and collapsing in the entrance, I finally got some rest to rejuvenate before the meeting. Once open, I entered, retrieved my parcel from the lockers, and made my way to the moss-covered restroom to make myself respectable. I did the best I could.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I knocked on Chris\u2019s door. He warmly greeted me and offered me a nice first flush Darjeeling. I attempted to hide my exhaustion, but my ordeal was plain to see. I told him the story, and he simply said, \u201cwe could have just done it over Zoom.\u201d After spending the afternoon talking music, Chris committed to helping me with the label however he could. I banked the favor and he dropped me off at the bowling alley so I could suit up and take the plunge once again. Once I went to the locker though, CBSA had other plans, and immediately detained and deported me. All\u2019s well that ends well, though, and I eventually got Chris\u2019s serene lullaby to release on Source Foray<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
Preorder Source Foray now<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n
\"Christopher<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Christopher Bissonnette – Persuasion During the 2020 lockdowns, it was nearly impossible to cross south into Canada from Detroit unless it was for \u201cessential\u201d work. But there was no way I was going to let that blow my one chance to secure a song from Christopher Bissonnette for Source Foray. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":103,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,8],"tags":[49,47,41,46,48,43,44,4,39,45,42,40],"class_list":["post-132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-journal","category-sfstories","tag-darjeeling","tag-deportation","tag-detroit","tag-giant-squid","tag-magnacut","tag-polar-bears","tag-purple-gang","tag-source-foray","tag-thinkbox","tag-under-the-bridge","tag-wim-hof","tag-windsor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/somnambulantdrift.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/somnambulantdrift.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/somnambulantdrift.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/somnambulantdrift.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/somnambulantdrift.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/somnambulantdrift.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":135,"href":"https:\/\/somnambulantdrift.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132\/revisions\/135"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/somnambulantdrift.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/somnambulantdrift.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/somnambulantdrift.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/somnambulantdrift.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}